Discussions have been hot on the TV3's Chinese New Year advertisement. While some see it as a funny way to laugh at our stereotypes and bigotry, some deride it as tasteless and offensive .

I watched it during Chinese New Year and found it very funny to the extend I felt like sharing it with my Hungarian friends. Whether you find it funny or offensive, I am afraid what was being laughed at was not any racist bigotry, but the Chinese obsession with red colour.

Red has been a colour of celebration and blessing for Chinese, traced back to the great Han Dynasty starting at about 202 BC. Ancient Chinese believed that the rise and fall of a dynasty corresponded to one of the five elements in the universe: earth, water, fire, gold and wood, each with a colour: yellow, black, red, white and green.

The first Han emperor claimed that he was 'the son of the Red Emperor' to justify his reign. Red has since become a favourite colour for the Chinese. Meanwhile, black and white are seen as the colour of mourning and grief. Today, Chinese still refer to wedding as 'the red matter' and funeral 'the white matter'. That's the reason why Chinese do not wear and use black on Chinese New Year.

Let's recall the advertisement. It starts off with the matriarch calling everyone in her family to change everything they use into ones that were red in colour. Black clothing, black spectacles, black pens ... were all replaced by the red ones. Even the chopsticks and TV programme

being watched have to be red in colour. Then, the young son, in red of course, coming back from America for the family reunion dinner, with his girlfriend in red cheongsam as well, greeted everyone. The matriarch, however, fainted because the girlfriend was a black American - the one thing that she couldn't change into red and perhaps never thought of.

What was being laughed at? Racist bigotry toward dark-skinned people? That does not cross my mind at all until I read the discussions on malaysiakini . I only thought that it was funny to make fun at the millennia-long Chinese obsession for red - the Chinese from the Han Dynasty to probably the older generations today would never have thought of its applicability or suitability because they will never have a 'black' family member. But the world has now changed. Living in a modern world, many old concepts simply need to be redefined and reinterpreted.

Opinion by right should be treated independently of the person. However, if I am thought to have enjoyed the advertisement simply because I do not know of the prejudice that darker-skinned people and inter-racial couples suffer, the truth would be quite the opposite.

I am 'yellow' both in name and colour. I have had a Tamil girlfriend in the past and before that, crazily fallen for a Punjabi girl. They all have darker skin than I do, which I have never seen as a minus. Hopefully I would not be accused of being racist as I do find dark skin attractive, although lighter skin has not turned me off either.

I do not argue that the racial prejudice has faded away in the Malaysian society. And I think the discussions in malaysiakini over the TV3 ad is healthy and should be welcomed to caution us on bigotry. But it needs to be stated clearly: black and dark skin are really two different things. I have met Chinese who looked down at others simply for their darker skins, but I have not heard that they do so because they think people with darker skins bring bad luck. So, let's bark up the right tree.

A HSBC advertisement in UK claims that the custom of a Mediterranean country is for the guests at the wedding reception to collect and not present gifts to the bride and groom. Hence, we see a stunned British bride having her gift from the last guest grabbed by a Mediterranean family on their way out. Would you want to interpret this as the bank's message that knowledge of local customs is important, or as its implied insult to ridicule the people of that country or even southern Europe at large?